


Trust Fall

by ChocoboCowgirl



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:35:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24073072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoboCowgirl/pseuds/ChocoboCowgirl
Summary: Rufus gets in another training session with the Turks…
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Trust Fall

Rufus stood at the edge of an uncompleted floor about halfway up the high rise currently under construction in Sector 5. Tseng was with him. And somewhere below them, his other three Turks – Rude, Reno, and Elena – were waiting. This training exercise was to be a trust fall of epic proportions.

He peered over the edge again. His palms were sweaty, and his mouth was irritatingly dry. He gulped in a lungful of air and stepped back from the ledge with his hands on top of his head.

“You can do this, sir,” Tseng said behind him. “Don’t you trust us?”

“Yes,” sighed Rufus, “I trust you.”

“Then what is the problem?”

“I… don’t know,” Rufus admitted, closing his eyes and moving his hands to cover his face.

“Is it the height?” asked Tseng, stepping to the very edge and looking over it. It really was a long way to the sidewalk below.

“No. I’m not scared of heights.”

“Then you don’t trust us to catch you,” Tseng replied bluntly.

“No. I trust you. I already told you that.” Rufus was getting frustrated with himself and with Tseng.

“If you trust us then the logical conclusion is that you are afraid of heights,” Tseng insisted.

Rufus wanted to tell Tseng where he could shove his logic, but refrained from doing so, instead telling him, “You are not helping me, Tseng.”

Tseng was a patient man, but even he had his limits. And three hours on this twenty-something floor with Rufus was his limit. If Rufus didn’t jump soon, he would. Setting that thought aside, he turned towards the stairs and pulled out his phone.

“Elena, you’re up. I’m coming down.”

-

Elena sat daringly on the edge of the floor, her feet dangling carelessly in the open air.

“Sit with me, sir,” she suggested, patting the unfinished concrete beside her.

He looked down at her warily.

“You’ll feel more stable sitting down,” she explained, patting the spot next to her again.

With a sigh, Rufus lowered himself to the floor beside her, but sat with his knees hugged to his chest. Only his toes barely protruded out past the ledge.

“See, sir? This isn’t so bad, is it?” she asked, swinging her legs back and forth. When he didn’t answer her, she looked over at him. He had his chin tilted up and his eyes focused on the drifting clouds overhead. “You should really try to look down, sir,” she suggested.

When he turned his face to look at her, she bent over at the waist and craned her neck to lean as far out over the edge as possible. She was able to look straight down on Reno, Rude, and Tseng. She waved at them. Only Reno waved back.

She nudged Rufus with her elbow. “Now you try it,” she ordered.

Rufus bravely stretched one hand over the edge and flexed his wrist back and forth in an awkward wave.

“Oh, hey! Reno saw you,” Elena exclaimed, “He’s waving back!”

She stole another glance at Rufus and saw a very slight smile on his face, although it was probably just his nerves.

“All right. Next…” Elena reached over and put a hand on his right knee, “Let one leg hang off.” She saw a flash of panic cross his eyes. “Just one,” she encouraged him.

Slowly, he did as she asked and allowed her to slide his foot over the edge and lowered his knee. He left it hanging perfectly still, lest he move it and feel nothing but the empty air surrounding it. He took a deep breath.

“Want some candy?”

Rufus turned a confused look at her and saw she had a fistful of colorful candies in her right hand. Where she had gotten them, he had no clue.

“Uh… no thanks,” he declined. He knew she was only trying to distract him, to get his thoughts on other things.

“That’s what Tseng always says, too,” she told him, not sounding at all disappointed. “Let’s see if he wants one now.” Then she leaned over the edge, took aim at the dark haired head below them, and dropped a piece of yellow candy.

“What–?” Rufus started.

She held a hand up to stop him. When she got no reaction from the guys below, she made a fist. “Drat. Must’ve missed.” She then chucked another piece indiscriminately over the edge. She opened her hand and offered the candy to Rufus. “Why don’t you aim for Rude? That bald head should be hard to miss.”

She was pleased to see what she thought was a genuine smile on his face as he took three candies from her hand and leaned out just a little over the ledge. Following her example, he took aim and dropped one piece. Elena laughed beside him and threw another candy of her own. This time, they saw Reno flinch.

“Oh! Did I get Reno?” asked Elena excitedly, “Throw another one!”

At her urging, Rufus leaned over to throw his last piece of candy. As he did so, his right shoe slipped off his foot, and he watched it tumble through the air for what felt like an eternity before hitting the pavement right next to Tseng, who didn’t even flinch. Rufus quickly snatched his leg back over the edge and crab-walked back away from it as quickly as he possibly could.

“This isn’t working,” he lamented throwing himself onto his back a safe distance from the ledge.

With a sigh, Elena tossed the rest of her candy over the edge in a single throw and stood up. Snatching her phone from her hip pocket, she headed for the stairs.

“Next!” she ordered.

-

When Rufus opened his eyes, Reno was standing over him, one foot on either side of his head, looking straight down at him. Rufus put a hand over his eyes.

“What do you want?” he moaned.

Reno chuckled and popped a piece of candy in his mouth as he walked a small arch around the grounded man. He stopped at his feet. He put another candy in his mouth and bit down on it. Rufus opened his eyes at the sound of the crunch and lifted his head to look towards Reno.

“Is that…?”

Reno nodded. “Elena’s candy. She always gets the best stuff. Want one?” he tossed one towards him and it bounced off Rufus’s chest.

“…No,” Rufus let his head drop back to the concrete and moaned, covering his face with both hands.

“Good. More for me,” Reno shoved the rest of the candy in his mouth all at once before squatting down at Rufus’s feet. Grabbing the heel of Rufus’s remaining shoe, he gave it a yank and it came right off.

Rufus bolted upright. “Hey! What are you–?”

Reno chucked it over his shoulder and it disappeared over the edge of the building. “Just keeping you balanced,” he said, speaking through a mouthful of candy. He swallowed. “Can’t have you falling with one foot heavier than the other.”

“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way,” Rufus answered dryly, sitting up to look at his two socked feet.

“How would you know?” Reno shot back, walking around to stand behind Rufus. Reaching down, he cupped his hands under Rufus’s armpits and hefted him up, saying, “Upsy daisy.” With Rufus back on his feet, Reno pressed one finger between his shoulder blades and goaded him forward.

“Reno, wait,” Rufus ordered, leaning into the pressure against his back.

With a sigh, Reno stepped up beside him and threw an arm around his neck, letting his hand dangle over Rufus’s shoulder. “Ya know,” Reno started, his fingers drumming against Rufus’s chest, “The sooner you jump, the sooner we all get to go home.”

Rufus didn’t say anything in response. With a sigh, Reno removed his arm and placed both hands lightly on Rufus’s shoulders and urged him forward gently. Rufus took a step willingly, so Reno urged him for another as he talked.

“Back when I first did this we were using an old warehouse in Sector 3. The old Chief took me up to the roof and told me to jump.”

“Did you?” asked Rufus, taking another step.

“Shit, no! I gave the Chief the finger and told him he was crazy. He told me then that the first time is always the hardest but that he was going to help me get through it.”

“How did he do that?” asked Rufus with hesitance, still eying the ledge warily.

Reno’s fingers tightened around his shoulders as he leaned in close and whispered the secret in his ear. “He pushed me!”

Rufus felt himself moving towards the edge. He reached up with both hands and grabbed Reno’s wrists.  
“Reno, stop!” he ordered. “If you push me off, I’m taking you with me!”

“Go ahead,” Reno dared, leaning Rufus out over the edge, “I ain’t scared of a little twenty story fall.”

“Stop! Reno! I said stop!”

“Oh, come on,” Reno drawled, pulling him back safely from the edge and throwing a brotherly arm around his shoulders, “You didn’t think I’d actually push you, did ya? I thought Tseng said you trusted us?”

“Go away, Reno,” Rufus ordered, covering his face with his hands. “Please, just go away.”

“Fine.” Reno withdrew his arm and started down the stairs, phone in hand. “Send up the big guy.”

-

Rude stood in complete silence, hands clasped behind his back, five feet behind and to the right of Rufus as he stood at the edge yet again. It was the closest he had been since Reno threatened to push him off an hour before.

“You know, the longer you look at it, the closer it appears,” Rufus said with a nervous chuckle. Rude said nothing.

“Did Verdot really push Reno off?” he asked the Turk, desperate to a hear a voice other than his own.

“He did,” Rude replied curtly.

“I would’ve liked to have seen that,” Rufus said, inching closer to the ledge.

“It was… enjoyable.” Rude smiled at the memory.

“I bet,” Rufus chuckled. He took another step forward and lined his toes up with the edge.

Rude fell silent again behind him. In the quiet, Rufus mentally walked himself through the exercise again. Step up to the edge. Step off of the edge. Fall safely into the net that the Turks would deploy the instant he fell. It sounded so easy, so why was it so hard? He cast Rude a glance over his shoulder. He couldn’t see the Turk’s eyes behind his shades, but he could feel that they were not on him. Good. That felt good. No pressure from Rude then. In fact, the Turk stood so still and quiet that he could be asleep on his feet for all he knew. 

He turned back to the edge and could see Tseng, Elena, and Reno down below. The way Elena was moving her hands around, he figured they were discussing something, though he could not hear a word of it from up there. In fact, he couldn’t hear anything. A thick cloud of silence seemed to envelope him, leaving him alone with only his thoughts. And he was quickly growing tired of his own voice talking in circles around inside his head. Just do it. Just do it. Just do it. Before he realized he was doing it, he was pushing off from the ledge, tipping forward out over the open air. Then he was falling. He closed his eyes and let himself go.

**Author's Note:**

> I realize this might be a little out of character for Rufus, since he is usually portrayed as such a confident, fearless guy but I thought it would be fun to see him struggle with something for a change.


End file.
